HC Deb 05 July 1933 vol 280 cc458-74

10.59 p.m.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Dr. Burgin)

I beg to move, That the Additional Import Duties (No. 11) Order, 1933, dated the twelfth day of June, nineteen hundred and thirty-three, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the twelfth day of June, nineteen hundred and thirty-three, be approved. With your permission, Mr. 45peaker, and with the consent of the House, I propose to deal with this Import Duties Order, and the following one together. We are called upon to consider Orders Nos. 11 and 13. Order No. 12 reduced duties in accordance with the Danish Trade Agreement, and did not require to be brought before the House for approval, and that is why the numbers are not consecutive. The two Orders before us deal with 13 different industries, and the House will be relieved to know that in seven cases there is a reduction of duty and in six cases there are new duties. I imagine that the House will not require any particular explanation of any of the seven cases in which a reduction of duty was recommended by the Import Duties Advisory Committee. I propose to follow practice by explaining these Orders shortly in the first instance, and being ready to deal later with any questions raised by hon. Members. The additional duties relate to six articles: doors, floor-blocks, barrel staves, wood-wool, hats and lace. I do not suppose that the Committee will require very much explanation about some of those matters, but others are obviously more important. No question of tariff truce arises, for all these are matters which were before the Import Duties Advisory Committee prior to 12th May of this year.

May I take the new duties in the order in which they appear in Order No. 13 of the Committee? The first of them relates to doors. Doors were mainly of home manufacture. before the War, produced by small joinery firms up and down the country. The proposal is that there should be a specific duty, such a rate of duty as will, with the 10 per cent. ad valorem duty, amount to 2s. a door, or 20 per cent., whichever is the greater. The doors referred to are house-doors and not cupboard doors. The statistics of imports are interesting. In the first five months of this year, the imports came in as follows—in terms of thousands of doors: January, 166; February, 111;

March, 155; April, 131; May, 210. The bulk of those supplies were from the United States and Sweden. The importance of giving those figures to the House is to show the very extensive nature of the exports which are still coming in. The recommendation has been made because if you have a specific rate of duty, you will ensure that any consignment of particularly low-priced doors shall not escape paying the full amount of duty. The next item is hard-wood floor-blocks. I do not propose to say anything about them. There is a substantial home industry producing those floor-blocks, and the use of certain Empire woods is encouraged. I come to barrel staves. The duty on barrels is 20 per cent., but the manufactured stave is subject only to 10 per cent. That is a direct encouragement to people to import manufactured staves and buy the balance required over here—no cooperage job at all, but a mere assembly. The House will be interested to know that there is an increased demand for beer barrels. That is one of the matters in which we are indebted to the United States. Wood-wool is a packing material. I do not propose to weary the House with anything about that. In wooden blocks for hoot manufacture there is a reduction and we need not deal with that.

I come to hats, lace and embroidery. In regard to hats, the Committee have made a recommendation which will be found on page 9 of Order No. 13. Headgear of all kinds was subject to a 20 per cent. duty. The imports show very little reduction on the quantity imported in 1931, and there has been no fall in imports in 1932, such as is normally associated with the imposition of a tariff. Straw hats come chiefly from Italy, France and Germany; fur hats from France, Austria and Czechoslovakia; cloth hats from Germany, France and Czechoslovakia, and wool hats chiefly from Italy. The imports are very considerable. In two of the last three months they were quite surprisingly high, and the Import Duties Advisory Committee felt that it was desirable to impose new and higher duties. The total number of insured workers in the hat industry is 35,570, and the relative unemployment in the industry is low compared with the country as a whole.

I must ask the indulgence of the lady Members of the House if I am not wholly familiar with lace and embroidery, and do not show the same facility as, for instance, in dealing with percentages of import trade; but the House will realise that all is not lace that looks like lace. Therefore, the Committee have been embarrassed to know where to find a definition, and they have decided to recommend that this duty should be put on lace and lace net of all kinds, and on all material resembling lace or lace net. As the matter of lace and embroidery is extremely technical, I imagine that I shall follow the wishes of the House if I give the broad effect rather than attempting to go into detail. The broad effect is to increase to 30 per cent. the duty on all lace and embroidery—except certain braids which are required by the hat-making industry, and are not largely produced here—and on the great bulk of articles containing lace or embroidery, excluding articles in which lace or embroidery is a small and trivial element, such as socks and shoes. The particulars of importations and employment are available. The last subject on which a duty is proposed is decolorising carbon other than animal. As the House will appreciate, that is carbon in a finely divided form used for decolorising sugar, or granular carbon used for recovering benzol from gas.

11.8 p.m.

Sir STAFFORD CRIPPS

In the Debate yesterday on the Board of Trade Vote, I asked the President of the Board of Trade whether these Orders would constitute any breach of the tariff truce, and he said in his reply: We have taken, and we are taking, no steps which have not already been made public in one form or another by 12th May." -OFFICIAL If 4th July, 1932; col. 302, Vol. 280.] I shall be glad if the hon. Gentleman will tell us how these matters were made public, as a matter of charging duties, prior to the 12th May. It is true that the matter had been referred to the Advisory Committee, but I presume that nobody knew the decision of the Committee before the date which is put at the end of their Report, and, therefore, if, as I gathered from the speech of the President of the Board of Trade, he thought it was necessary that the duties should be made public by the 12th May, I do not quite understand how it can be said that these proposed new taxes were made public by that date. I do not think that the President of the Board of Trade was very accurate in his statement but I should be glad if the hon. Gentleman would tell us what the precise facts are, and why precisely it is that the matter does not come within the tariff truce. I do not propose to go through these various matters in detail, because that would be an absolute farce. In fact, the hon. Gentleman's speech, though most amusing, was really rather farcical if it is to form the basis of considered opinion by Members of this House as to the merits of these various taxes.

I Want to take this opportunity of pointing out to the House precisely what it is that they are asked to do with regard to these import Orders. If I may just take one of them at random, as an example, I will take the last which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, that for activating and decolourising carbon. That is, of course, an important raw material, which is used in a number of industries. There are no statistics available as regards quantities—I know that the hon. Gentleman has got them, but not in a form in which people can consider them from the point of view of a decision tonight whether or not it is wise or not—I am coming in a moment to what my view is as regards that—but we have no statistics available; no figures of home manufacture available; no material, indeed, at all, and there is no material contained in the report on which one can form any proper judgment. One must accept this, presumably, as part of a considered plan by the Government. I agree completely that it would be impossible for this House to investigate a matter of this sort satisfactorily. It is not the type of matter for which the House can take the responsibility; all we can do, by voting or not voting, is to record our dissent or assent to the general policy of the Government.

But it must be remembered that that is a matter of vital importance to certain individuals. It is very important to certain manufacturers. Some people will have their business made by it; other people will have their business broken by it. It will be very important to certain users of this material; it will be very important to the importers of this material if the importation of it is stopped; and it will be very important to the workers in some industries. The Government's decision, whether it is right or wrong, will decide the fate of the allocation of national wealth so far as those individuals are concerned. One man may come out of business somewhere, and another man in another business may get a job which he had not got before. That matter, of great and supreme importance to individuals is, I think quite rightly, being decided by the Government outside the House of Commons. It is a much more important matter than, for instance, whether some individual's property is taken in some private Bill; but when that is considered the House goes through the long, intricate and expensive procedure of Private Bill Legislation to determine the matter.

We agree that in present-day circumstances this form of procedure is one which has got to he increasingly adopted; but it is very important that the country should he alive to the fact that it is Being adopted at the present day by the National Government. The so-called Constitutionalists who number themselves among the Members of the National Government are apt to question the suggestion that any powers of Debate or discussion should be taken away from the House of Commons. It is important for the country to realise that this great National Government ha3 started upon a complete revolution in Parliamentary procedure, a revolution which we regard as of the utmost importance. We do not object to that, provided that the Opposition is left, as it is left, completely free to challenge at any time the general policy of the Government by Vote of Censure, or in any other way. But we desire. to put it upon record decisively that this is a mode of procedure which, if we get the opportunity, we shall adopt in an increasing measure. We desire everyone to realise that we shall only be following the very good precedent that is being set by the present Government, and we hope we shall be able to utilise it for just such measures as the transference of the national wealth from one lot of people to another, which could only be done effectively as part of a Government plan and which, once the House has decided the general lines, the Government must be left to carry out subject to a general censure by the House if they consider it to be wrong.

11.16 p.m.

Mr. MALLALIEU

I want to pass some general observations on this somewhat heterogeneous mass of Orders. The Import Duties Advisory Committee has now been functioning for a very considerable time and by now it is not unreasonable to expect to be able to see what underlying principle it has been guided by when it has been dealing with the welter of jarring interests which must have been before it from day to day. Unfortunately this batch of Orders shows no indication of any such principle. There has been put before the House a jumble of often inconsistent reasons as a justification for this obviously empirically evolved network of hindrances to legitimate trade. What is quite obvious is that the door of the Tariff Committee has been opened only to those. who have shouted loudest. Whatever else may he said of the tariff which this committee has evolved, it is certainly not a scientific tariff. We have, under the same cover, an Order recommending a duty on the ground that the article to be taxed is not a necessary, but a luxury, and an Order putting a duty upon an article because presumably it is a luxury. You have doors and parquet floors. The one is a luxury and is, therefore, taxed, and the other is a necessary and is still taxed in the same Order. The hon. Gentleman asks is a door a necessary. Most certainly it is.

Dr. BURGIN

My hon. Friend misunderstood me. I asked whether an imported door was a necessary for a British house.

Mr. MALLALIEU

I should say the British house-builder is the man to judge that.

Dr. BURGIN

It is he who has made the application.

Mr. MALLALIEU

I very much question the Minister's statement. If be wishes, I will introduce him to many builders who will make no such application. The tariff is being used as a means of encouraging production in this country of things which are luxuries and not necessaries. That is one of the scientific aspects of this matter. These raw materials of the building industry are being taxed at the moment when the Government, somewhat optimistically as some of us think, are holding out hopes that private enterprise will be able to meet the need for houses at rents such as the poorer type of wage earners can afford. This is the moment when this machinery, set up by the Government, chooses further to tax the raw materials of the house-builder. Consider the position of the builder about to build, say, 300 houses. It is not a very unusual event nowadays for a builder to plan to set up 300 small houses. The Tariff Advisory Committee glibly suggest that in all probability there will be no material increase in the price of houses as a result of the duty upon doors. Is that relevant? Surely, what we have to consider is not the increase in the price of houses when finished so much as the effect which the duty will have upon the building of houses. [An HON. MEMBER: "None."] An hon. Member says "None." I want him to put himself in the position of the builder about to lay out 300 houses, who in these days is having an exceedingly hard time to make a profit. I do not think that anyone will question that in these days of extreme competition profit has to be kept extremely fine. Suppose there is only the smallest increase upon doors. There are probably eight doors in a house as a minimum. Three hundred times eight makes 2,400, and 2,400 small increases make one considerable increase. May it not be that such a builder may be disinclined to start the building of 300 houses at all? That is the way in which to look at the matter, and not merely at the price of houses when finished.

The raw material of the hat trade is also to be taxed. The trade is fortunate, perhaps, in having the Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade as its chief representative in this House. Its finished product also is to be taxed, which merely means that the consumer is to be mulcted twice over. Surely, it is a topsy-turvy sense of values to encourage, by these duties, the production of such things as briar pipes and golf sticks, and at the same time binder to the best of your ability the production of far more necessary things such as houses. As to the duty upon hats and hat shapes, there would, from the explanation given by the Tariff Advisory Committee, seem to be great disappointment on the part of the Committee that the importation of hats had not decreased in the year 1931–32 as much as the Committee would have liked. Where is this decreased importation to stop? There was a tremendous decrease in imports in the year 1930-31. Can this go on every year? Is that the policy of the Committee? It may be the policy of individual Members of this House to bring about the complete cessation of imports of hats, finished or semi-finished, but that is not the policy of the Government. It is not the policy to which the Government have committed themselves—to bring about the complete cessation of imports of goods into this country merely because they can be produced here in certain circumstances. Moreover, that policy is entirely inconsistent with the view expressed by the Government that they desire to bring about a progressive, or some, restriction in the barriers to trade. Therefore, unless a complete embargo is required, the main reason given by the Committee for this duty upon hats and hat shapes is entirely invalid.

The House will have noted the pleasure, one might almost have said the relish, with which the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade referred to the proposed duties upon hat shapes. Perhaps the explanation is to be found in the article—or is it a letter 1—to which my attention has been called in a newspaper called the "Luton News." The Parliamentary Secretary is Member for Luton and also the writer of the article. The article is important in some respects. It starts off with a most. wonderful description of the delegates at the Conference of the nations of the world falling over each other in their admiration of our tariff system. It speaks, for instance, of how they admire its complete detachment from political influence and pressure— [Laughter]—which, quite evidently, judging by that laughter, the House also admires. It then goes on to say how they admire the way in which the result is arrived at without any bitterness or political feeling and without any lobbying or political influences. He draws a most engaging picture of all these unfortunate foreigners wishing they could have a similar system in their countries. Then, with that modesty which even the youngest of us have come to associate in some degree with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, he goes on to describe to his constituents the effect of these particular Orders with which we are now dealing. I will quote two short paragraphs: The new Order which has just been made in regard to hats and hoods—the terms of which were set out in the Saturday Telegraph —will fall to be introduced and passed through the House of Commons by myself, not as Member for Luton—although perhaps there is no other Member of the House more vitally interested in the particular Orders—but as Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. The people of Luton will readily understand what particular pride and pleasure I shall experience in making the speech introducing the Order imposing additional duties on hate and hoods, and how confident I shall be that the local colour and illustrations introduced into the speech will not be capable of contradiction from any quarter of the House. It is not necessary for me to add anything to the terms of the Order itself as to the details, nor would I venture to discuss technical matters in the home and centre of the trades affected. I would only say that I have from the outset, in the ways which lie in my power, given counsel and advice with regard to this matter, and that the passage of the Order through the House of Commons will be a fitting culmination to the efforts of all those who, in this now organised industry, have worked hard to bring their point of view to the notice of the Committee. I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary what are these ways in which he is able to use his power to influence the Committee? In what way is he able to give counsel and advice to the Committee, which hon. Members are not able to give? What has happened to the picture of a distant and aloof Committee?

Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS

On a point of Order. An imputation has been made against an hon. Member, and I suggest that it is quite proper for any hon. Member of this House to give his constituents such advice as from his experience he is able to give as to their method of procedure. The imputation is that the Parliamentary Secretary has used his position to bring pressure to bear on the Committee. Any hon. Member has the right to give advice to his constituents to the method of procedure they should adopt.

Mr. SPEAKER

I did not gather that any imputation was being made against the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade.

Mr. MALLALIEU

If there was any imputation it was made by the Parliamentary Secretary himself. I wish to add nothing to the words which he has himself used. All I desire is to give him an opportunity of commenting upon his own words. If the hon. Member is entitled to approach the Committee in some way of which I have not heard of before what becomes of the picture given us by the Government of a Committee which is beyond the reach of the hand of the politician? I will say no more about it because no doubt the Parliamentary Secretary will refer to it when he replies. It is hardly satisfactory to ask the House to deal with a batch of Orders so vastly different as are contained in this Order. Whilst approving some and disapproving of others it is impossible to express an opinion by a vote, and we on these benches do not propose to take that course we can only make our protest and leave it at that.

11.34 p.m.

Sir BASIL PETO

There is one comment I want to make on the clear and lucid speech of the Parliamentary Secretary. I want to know why when duties are reduced it is unnecessary to make any comment or to give any explanation, and why he should confine himself to those cases in which the duty has been increased? It seems to me that in dealing with tariffs it is just as important to know why duties are reduced as it is to know why they are increased. There are only two points upon which I desire to comment. One is the duty on doors. I congratulate the Advisory Committee on the fact that WC have now, in the duty on doors, one of the few cases of a specific duty on a definite article. The short Schedule to this recommendation specifies a door of not less than six feet in height and two feet in width and that is about as small a door as is practicable and convenient for use by persons of the average size. There you have something which is definite and which is not changeable. In this period, when the value of practically every article changes from day to day in terms of currency, it is obvious that if you are going to put on duties at all, it is better to have specific duties in all cases where they are possible and applicable. In the case of ad valorem duties I have been told in answer to questions that we charge the duty on the invoice price of the article. I ask the House to consider what that means at this time when the invoice price of articles is a matter of great concern to this and other Governments, because there are so many cases in which that price is below the lowest possible cost of production. The effect of charging ad valorem duties on such a basis as that, is that the more excessive the dumping, the smaller the price at which the goods are invoiced and the less the duty. Therefore, the greater the need for the duty, the less duty is imposed. I cannot imagine a more upsidedown proceeding.

Where ad valorem duties are necessary, I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will use his influence to see that they are charged upon the fair selling price or the average selling price in the country of origin. That is the method used by those countries which have more practice in these tariff matters than we have. I was intimately connected with the building trade 40 or 50 years ago when what we then called Swedish doors were first imported and the attitude of the comparatively young trade unions of those days against the importation of Swedish doors was so pronounced that there were public demonstrations of outraged carpenters and joiners, who refused to fix those doors or to work on a job where any of them were used. I mention that fact to show how far the representatives of labour to-day have fallen away from the example set 40 or 50 years ago by those whom they claim to represent. Unfortunately, at that time under a system of laissez faire and free imports, nothing could be done and those protests were useless. I am thankful to think that at last something is being done in this respect for British joiners and British carpenters, and that they are not to be asked to put up with the importation of doors at prices which would involve labour conditions contrary to all trade union rules, if anybody attempted to produce them in this country.

With regard to Order No. 11 which deals with hollow ware, the Parliamentary Secretary has pointed out that the application for a re-examination of the existing duty of 25 per cent. under the Safeguarding Act was made prior to 12th May. Therefore, the Import Duties Advisory Committee were not barred by the Conference Tariff Truce from considering what duty they ought to impose in the interests of those who were concerned in the industry in this country, but hon. Members will find in the last paragraph but one that they were interfered with in the consideration of the matter by the Anglo-German Trade Agreement. The paragraph in question is this: Under the Anglo-German Trade Agreement the maximum rate of total duty chargeable on the class of goods covered by this application and by the present safeguarding duty is 20 per cent. ad valorem, and we are accordingly precluded from considering the question whether a duty in excess of that rate would be justified. They were in fact "cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd" in advance by a Treaty already made and supposed to be in the interests of British industry. The Advisory Committee went on to say: We are satisfied, however, that there is no ground for reducing the measure of protection now enjoyed below that rate. That implies that if they had had a free hand, they would have recommended at least the 25 per cent. which this industry had had in the past. I complain that we feel our hands tied in three respects. First of all, we commence these trade negotiations, which in this case directly influenced the findings of the Import Duties Advisory Committee, after the effective tariff duties have in many cases been taken off and we have nothing to bargain with; the second objection is that before the "most-favoured-nation" Clause has been denounced in many of our treaties, we give away to everybody what we give to the one country with whom we are negotiating; and, thirdly—the special point raised in this particular Order—treaties are entered into restricting the power of recommending duties adequate to meet the needs of our own industries. Therefore, while I cordially approve and welcome the duty in regard to doors, which was so strongly condemned by the hon. Member below me, as being in the interests of British tradesmen, in the best sense of that word—joiners and carpenters; I am not so much concerned with the builders and the builders' profits—I deprecate most strongly the fact that the Import Duties Advisory Committee, appointed to advise our Government as to what duties were in the interests of our own trade, finds its hands completely tied by the very Government which it is advising, so that it cannot arrive at the conclusion at which it would have arrived if the Government had not interfered by making trade agreements beforehand.

11.45 p.m.

Mr. DAVID REID

The Report of the Committee says: The main part of the embroidery industry, working on solid fabrics, is carried on chiefly in Northern Ireland and in the Macclesfield area. I welcome the increase in duty proposed by these Orders, but I should like to call attention to the paragraph on page 12 of the Report, which says: It should he mentioned that there is a considerable trade in the temporary exportation of cotton and linen goods to he embroidered and returned. Members of the House may not know that' the embroidery industry was a very large industry in the North of Ireland. It, never was, except in a few exceptional cases, a whole-time industry. Work was sent out to women, labourers' wives and daughters, who did it in their homes. Some years ago they were, against their will, given a trade board, and the result was that a minimum of wages was laid down. It therefore paid the manufacturers to send their work abroad. I fail to see why we should indulge in this dual procedure at a time when we are trying to increase employment. Why should we impose a particular rate of wages on an industry, which to a large extent hampers that industry, and, when employers escape from that rate by sending the work abroad, why should we facilitate them doing that?

11.48 p.m.

Dr. BURGIN

The hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps) asked what the position was with regard to the tariff truce. The matter was stated on the 15th May by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who said: The object of the truce…is not intended to prevent the completion of operations already begun. Later he said: The Government will, during the operation of the truce, refrain from making Orders for increases of Customs duties in respect of any applications which had not been received by the Committee before the 12th May."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th May, 1933; col. 17, Vol, 278.] That was the Chancellor's answer in the House of Commons. With regard to the question of how these are made public, as the hon. and learned Member is aware, announcements are made by the Import Duties Advisory Committee of the matters that are referred to them and that they have under consideration. I have the dates of the announcements of these particular matters, many of which go back to October and November of last year. So that the whole world was made aware by public announcements, that applications for increases of duties relating to these subjects were being considered by the Committee. The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Mallalieu) read a letter from me appearing in a paper circulating in my constituency. That letter, when not misrepresented, states the simple fact that I had tendered advice and counsel to my constituents. The House may like to know that advice and counsel which I have tendered. It was that, if an industry imagined it had any case for applying for a duty, it must organise itself and marshal its arguments. It will be found upon further inquiry that those letters were prior to my assuming my present office. The House will not require any assurance from me that I have never by writing or visit or in any other way made any acquaintance with the Import Duties Committee.

11.51 p.m.

Sir P. HARRIS

Needless to say we accept the explanation and I am glad the hon. Gentleman has had the opportunity to make it, but it is unfortunate that, in his position, not as a private Member, but as representing the Department primarily concerned, he went out of his way as recently as 20th June to send a communication through the Press which, as I think, gives a false impression: I can only say that I have since the outset, in the ways which lie in my power, given counsel and advice in regard to this matter. I can only suggest to the hon. Member that, in his special position as a Minister, that was an unfortunate communication to send. We are under a new regime when the new powers of the House can give benefits to special industries and when this special machinery has been set up to which Members have quite rightly been denied the right of approach. It is therefore most desirable that Ministers should not send these special communications. I claim my right at this late hour and under this new procedure to protect the public and to express the opinions of those who criticise these proposals. The hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps) pointed out how this new procedure makes a useful precedent for a new form of Government. The House, as a whole, welcomes this new procedure and even regards criticism as objectionable. We are expected to accept these Orders in silence and en bloc [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I am glad that is not the case, and I would point out to the House that these Orders take a very objectionable form. Some are for reducing and some are for increasing duties. They cover a variety of articles with no relation to each other. Yet they are lumped together. No figures are given by the committee to justify their case. They do not even tell us the number who will be employed. They merely tell the House that they have decided to put a duty of 2s. on doors although doors are a raw material for the housing industry, which we desire to stimulate and to encourage towards cheaper production. From my own experience, I know that the main housing problem is to build houses down to the rent which the working man can pay. Even to-day, with the low prices prevailing, that is the difficulty. I protest most emphatically against this new procedure of lumping all sorts of duties together in one Order. It makes it difficult to vote. We cannot separate them. We have to accept them practically without explanation and en bloc

Sir JOHN HASLAM

I do not want to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but he says he is a member of the London County Council. Do they make it a condition, in connection with their housing schemes, that the articles used shall be British articles?

Sir P. HARRIS

It is quite true that it is the custom of my council to do that, and as a result many of those articles have gone up in price. But at the moment what I am finding fault with is the system of lumping together a great variety of articles, which are put through on one Vote. It is a bad precedent, which may be used by another Government for another purpose, and then perhaps we shall hear a different form of criticism. I hope that this practice will not be followed in future Orders, but that they will be so drafted that each case can be considered on its merits and voted on separately.

11.57 p.m.

Mr. MANDER

On a point of Order. I wish to ask for a Ruling as to whether there is any method by which the Orders before us to-night can be taken separately. We desire to support some and to oppose others. In their present form it is impossible for separate action to be taken. I desire to ask your guidance on the question of whether this is not an unreasonable method of dealing with the matter.

Mr. SPEAKER

No, it is quite clear that there is no alternative to approving of or disapproving of the Orders as a whole. The Question I put was, "That the Additional Import Duties Order No. 11 be approved." If the hon. Gentleman looks at the Act of Parliament he will find in Section 19, Sub-section (2), that it is laid down that the House must either approve or disapprove of an Order.

Resolved, That the Additional Import Duties (No. 11) Order, 1933, dated the twelfth day of June, nineteen hundred and thirty-three, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the twelfth day of June, nineteen hundred and thirty-three, he approved.

Resolved, That the Additional Import Duties (No. 13) Order, 1933, dated the twenty-third day of June, nineteen hundred and thirty-three, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the twenty-third day of June, nineteen hundred and thirty-three, be approved."—[Dr. Burgin.]